BLACK PASTORS RALLY OUTSIDE TRIAL IN ARBERY KILLING
Hundreds of pastors and others both rallied and prayed Thursday outside the trial of three White men in the killing of Ahmaud Arbery, gathering in response to a defense lawyer’s bid to keep Black ministers out of the courtroom.
As testimony resumed inside the Glynn County courthouse, a group of mostly Black ministers gathered outside — a sea of dark suits and white collars.
Many carried signs reading, “Black pastors matter,” and some wore buttons with Arbery’s picture and the hashtag they were using for the case, “#JusticeForAhmaud.” A vendor sold Tshirts under one tent while a woman under another offered water and snacks and asked people to put donations in a pickle jar.
The Rev. Al Sharpton announced the rally after a defense attorney intensified frustrations in the coastal Georgia community of Brunswick when he said he didn’t want “any more Black pastors” sitting in the courtroom with Arbery’s family.
As the crowd grew outside, the Rev. Jesse Jackson once again joined Arbery’s family in the courtroom. Criticizing the failed attempt to keep black pastors out of court, Sharpton told the rally that no one had questioned who is sitting with the defendants’ families.
“No lawyer can knock us out. Because no matter where you are, God is there,” he said. “We are going to keep coming until we get justice.”
Martin Luther King III, the son of slain civil rights leader the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., addressed the throng saying: “It only takes a few good women and men to bring change.”
Ben Crump, a civil rights attorney representing the Arbery family, predicted the defense would ask the judge for a mistrial because of the demonstration outside the courthouse.
“We need preachers to come pray for them in this insane situation, this inhumane situation,” he said. Earlier, people in the crowd chanted the names of Black people who have been killed in high-profile cases in which racism or police brutality were alleged.
Defense attorneys rested their case in the Ahmaud Arbery trial Thursday after calling just seven witnesses, including the shooter, who testified that Arbery did not threaten him in any way before he pointed his shotgun at the 25-year-old Black man.
Superior Court Judge Timothy Walmsley scheduled closing arguments in the trial for Monday, setting up the possibility of verdicts before Thanksgiving for the three White men charged with murder in Arbery’s death.
Cellphone video of Arbery’s death on Feb. 23, 2020, leaked online about two months later, deepening a national outcry over racial injustice. The defense contends Arbery was killed in self-defense.